dbt-labs/dbt-core · error · minijinja::Error (InvalidOperation)

Contract Error: {message}

Error message

Contract Error: {message}

What it means

Fallback variant of the missing-contract-data_type error: the same 'Contracted models require data_type to be defined for each column' failure raised without node id/file path because `node_metadata_from_state(state)` returned None. The compilation still fails for the affected node.

Source

Thrown at crates/dbt-jinja-utils/src/functions/base.rs:1268

                        Err(_) => "".to_string(),
                    }
                };

                let message = format!(
                    "Contracted models require data_type to be defined for each column.  Please ensure that the column name and data_type are defined within the YAML configuration for the {column_names_string} column(s)."
                );
                if let Some((node_id, file_path)) = node_metadata_from_state(state) {
                    Err(Error::new(
                        ErrorKind::InvalidOperation,
                        format!(
                            "Contract Error for {} from {}: {}",
                            node_id,
                            file_path.display(),
                            message
                        ),
                    ))
                } else {
                    Err(Error::new(
                        ErrorKind::InvalidOperation,
                        format!("Contract Error: {message}"),
                    ))
                }
            }
            // (msg, node=None)
            "raise_fail_fast_error" => {
                let mut args = ArgParser::new(args, None);
                let message = args.get::<String>("msg")?;
                if let Some((node_id, file_path)) = node_metadata_from_state(state) {
                    Err(Error::new(
                        ErrorKind::InvalidOperation,
                        format!(
                            "FailFast Error for {} from {}: {}",
                            node_id,
                            file_path.display(),
                            message
                        ),

View on GitHub (pinned to 0267ce9170)

Solutions

1. Add `data_type:` to all columns in the YAML contract block.
2. Run via `dbt build`/`run` to get the located error variant pointing at the file.
3. Ensure contract-validation macros run within a node context.

Example fix

# before
# Contract Error: Contracted models require data_type to be defined for each column...

# after (models/my_model.yml)
columns:
  - name: id
    data_type: bigint

import yaml
cfg = yaml.safe_load(open('models/my_model.yml'))
assert all('data_type' in c for c in cfg['models'][0]['columns']), 'missing data_type in contract'

When it happens

Trigger: Missing data_type in a contracted model's YAML columns detected during Jinja evaluation when no node metadata is in state (parse/compile outside a model context, or dispatched macro without node info).

Common situations: Same as the located variant: contracted YAML missing `data_type`, evaluated outside a normal run path so the file location cannot be attached.

Understand the failure class

Background: Schema validation failed / invalid input schema: payload rejected because its shape doesn't match the expected schema — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• Contract Error for {} from {}: {}
• Compilation Error for {} from {}: {}
• Column 'name' must be a string
• Expected a list of column definitions
• describe_dynamic_table is not supported by the {} adapter

AI-assisted analysis of dbt-labs/dbt-core@0267ce9170 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a1bac7cdbf5f0d0a. Report an issue: GitHub.